My aim is to offer insights into some of the more subtle principles underpinning prints. The commentary is based on thirty-eight years of teaching and the prints and other collectables that I am focusing on are those which I have acquired over the years.
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Thursday, 26 July 2018

Aegidius Sadeler II’s engraving, “View of a wooden house near Madrid”, c1600

“View of a wooden house near Madrid” (aka
“Vue d’un e maison de bois près Madrid” [title on plate in state iv]; “View of
a Village” [TIB title]; “Inn with Travellers” [Rijksmuseum title]), c1600–1610,
after a drawing by Pieter Stevens II (c1567–c1624), published by Aegidus
Sadeler and later by Marco Sadeler (fl.1660s).

Engraving and etching on laid paper with
narrow margins around the platemark.

State ii (of iv) Lifetime impression before
the erasure of the publication details and the inscription, “Gravé par Sadeler”,
signifying the third state and addition of the title, “Vue d’un e maison de
bois près Madrid”, and, “A Paris chés Daumont”, of the final state.

I am selling this fascinating study of everyday
activities in a small town on the outscirts of Madrid by one of the most famous
of the old masters for AU$343 (currently US$255.94/EUR219.13/GBP194.72 at the
time of this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world
(but not, of course, any import duties/taxes imposed by some countries).

If you are interested in acquiring this luminous
landscape that I see as facetted with beams of light like a jewel, please
contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal
invoice to make the payment easy.

This print has been sold

Mindful that the title of this print
advises that the featured subject is a wooden house near Madrid, I have only
seen El Greco’s “View of Toledo” (executed at much the same time as the print)
to verify whether Sadeler’s representation of a town outside of Madrid might
look like this at the beginning of the 1600s. Of course my cook will argue with
me that Toledo is a full hour and two minutes by train away from Madrid, and
thus falls outside the description, “near Madrid”. Although my cook’s argument may be a very
inconvenient truth, there is still a connection that I see between El Greco’s
famous painting and the way that Sadeler’s town is portrayed and it is all
about light. Essentially, both compositions are illuminated not by an external
light cast from the heavens but rather an INTERNAL light that is illuminating
them. In the case of Sadeler’s landscape, the beams of sunlight in the
foreground are treated in a way to suggest the facetted planes of a gemstone and the juxtaposition of strong lights and darks through the rest of
the scene resonates with the same vision of the lively light within a jewel.